I have always considered myself non-racist, and over time came to consider myself anti-racist. But it is one thing to call yourself anti-racist, and another thing to actually live an anti-racist life. As a white person born and raised in America, it has only been with time and conscious effort that I have begun unlearning my own implicit bias. Looking back on my early, clumsy attempts to be anti-racist, I am amazed at my own lack of understanding and naivete. I went through all the stages "good" white folks go through-being colorblind, thinking that knowing black pop culture somehow made me culturally competent, feeling defensive when the white supremacist history of the US was pointed out to me. I've had to unlearn the messages I internalized about things like "personal responsibility" and what it means when someone describes something as "ghetto". I've had to process the ways in which I have unthinkingly caused harm, and change the way I speak about things like "proper" English and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". But, as the wise and wonderful Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, do better".

If you are someone who follows me on social media, you know that over the last year or so I have posted a LOT of articles and videos about white supremacy and white fragility. While it is systemic racism that functions to uphold white supremacy in America, individual attitudes towards race and the way we as white folks participate in those systems will determine whether they will continue to function as a way to continue a racial caste system that has existed in the United States in one form or another since the first white colonizers traveled here from Europe. The research will tell you that most white folks see themselves as non-racist, and believe that the choices they make about where to live, who to hire, who their friends are, and what types of activities their children participate in are race-neutral. Despite this, all of us who are called white are acting at least in part in response to the unconscious biases ingrained in our psyche through years of social conditioning. The only way to effectively dismantle white supremacy as a system is to recognize and unlearn those biases.

Michelle Alexander provides a strong case for how the racial caste system in America has morphed from literal enslavement and Jim Crow to the current era of mass incarceration. She traces the history of the racial caste system in America, and describes in great detail how the War on Drugs and the criminalization of black people, especially black men, has created a justice system that is anything but just. Unlike the period of chattel slavery and the era of Jim Crow, Alexander argues that the current weaponization of the criminal justice system against poor black and brown people is permitted and supported by the very policies and legislation that were meant to end the oppression of people of color in American society. Because the laws and policies LOOK race-neutral, they are perceived as being race-neutral, even though they are applied in racist ways that uphold the system of white supremacy that has been a feature of American institutions since before the Revolutionary War. Lacking overtly racist motives, the courts have routinely said that the unequal rates of incarceration for black and brown people cannot be challenged on the basis of racial discrimination, despite the fact that even a cursory study of the effects of things like three-strikes laws, racial profiling, and probation and parole practices disproportionally affect black and brown people, keeping them under the control of the state, and allowing for legal discrimination in voting, housing, and employment.

Alexander's book is a stunning condemnation of the prison-industrial complex, and a rebuke to those people who think that we are somehow living in a post-racial America. She also takes to task those in the black community who continue to emphasize respectability politics in the search for racial justice, pointing out that even within the black community there are those who have internalized the idea that the overwhelming numbers of black and brown people currently incarcerated are a result of personal choices on the part of those who are imprisoned, rather than on a system that is specifically designed towards exactly this outcome.

When people ask me why I focus so much on calling out the toxic effects of whiteness, I often say, "You can't change what you can't name." White folks who really care about being not just non-racist, but actively anti-racist, MUST educate themselves about the ways white supremacy is baked into the very fabric of American society. Once you see how systems of oppression work, it is impossible to stop seeing. I suspect this is what keeps some well-meaning white folks from doing the work; they are operating under the "ignorance is bliss" principle. But willful ignorance will not protect us from the corrosive effects of systemic racism on our society. White supremacy is a sickness in the soul of white culture, and until it is rooted out and excised like the cancer it is, it will continue to harm not just black and brown people, but white people as well.

Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

"In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.", Angela Davis

I recently listened to a podcast series called Seeing White, which explored how and why whiteness as a concept was a created, and how it continues to function in American society. (I know, I know, if you're someone who is also friends with me on social media you've heard me recommend this podcast multiple times. I don't care; you should listen to it.) One of the things I realized listening to the podcast was that even though I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about racial justice issues, I still have so much to learn about the history of race and the myriad ways white supremacy has been baked into the foundation of American society.

Bryan Stevenson's memoir, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, provides more insight into many of the issues raised in the podcast. Bryan Stevenson is a civil rights lawyer who has spent his career representing people whose rights have been trampled on by a racist criminal justice system. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson has argued cases before the US Supreme Court challenging the death penalty, and life imprisonment without parole for juvenile offenders. Just Mercy chronicles his early career; the cases he worked on and the legal issues they represented. Since his days as a young, overworked lawyer, Stevenson has become a sought-after expert on criminal justice reform. He has also, as head of the Equal Justice Initiative, given the country the first museum and memorial dedicated specifically to lynching victims.

Just Mercy does a beautiful job balancing legal theory with the very intense, very personal stories of the clients Stevenson and EJI represented over the years. Stevenson lays out a clear path from the racist policies of the Jim Crow era to the continued racist practices in the age of mass incarceration. He clearly demonstrates the inherent inequities in the jury selection process and the harsh realities of prison on juveniles who are tried as adults. Stevenson intersperses the stories of his clients with his own story, demonstrating a depth of compassion that adds emotional heft to an already powerful story. I don't know how anyone who reads this book could argue with the basic lack of justice in our so-called justice system. Just Mercy is a clarion call for reform, real reform, to a system that was designed to function as a form of social control over people of color and poor people, those who are the most vulnerable in our society.

The President Has Been Shot, James L. Swanson

Any regular readers of this blog will know that non-fiction isn't really my thing. Apparently, I need a plot, because the only genre of non-fiction I read on a (semi)regular basis is the memoir. But, because we are gearing up to do some major curriculum revisions in the social studies department at my school, I spent the last month or so reading all the young adult non-fiction I could find pertaining to world history, American history, psychology, government, and even <gasp> economics.

Some of it was definitely not my cup of tea (I'm looking at you, Naked Economics), but I surprised myself by how many of the books I really enjoyed. One, in particular, was The President Had Been Shot by James L. Swanson. It details John F. Kennedy's rise to the presidency, including major events such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then gives a detailed, almost minute by minute account of the days leading up to the assassination, and the immediate aftermath.

There has been a rise in the amount of non-fiction aimed specifically at young adults in the last few years, and Swanson definitely understands his target demographic. The book is chock full of photographs, maps, and diagrams, breaking up the information visually and providing support for the reader, both of which have been shown to have a positive impact on the engagement and comprehension of young adult readers. The prose mostly reads like a good story, rather than a list of dates and facts, written in language that is sufficiently academic not to insult the intelligence of young adult readers, but not so academic that it feels stuffy and dry. The subject matter lends itself to a feeling of drama and suspense, despite the fact that we obviously already know how things turned out on that fateful day, and Swanson's writing fosters that feeling, especially once he gets to the events in Dallas just prior to, during, and after the assassination. What was new to me, even as an adult reader, was the descriptions of what happened the day of the assassination in terms of the gathering of evidence and treatment of the crime scene by police, FBI, and Secret Service officers. How so many people botched what was, even on the 1960s, pretty standard investigative protocols is beyond me, even given the extraordinary event that was the assassination of a sitting president.

There are a ton of content connections in the text that could be used as jumping off points for bringing in other material, if this book were to be used in a classroom. It mentions the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis, as stated above, but also the space race, the Berlin Wall, Joseph McCarthy, the Civil Rights movement, and Soviet defections. It is also an opportunity to examine the uniquely tragic history of the Kennedy family in general; Joseph Jr's death in WWII, JFK's assassination, RFK's assassination, Rosemary Kennedy's botched lobotomy, Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick scandal, and JFK Jr's plane crash. The book also makes mention of some of the conspiracy theories about the assassination that grew out of the Warren Report, providing a springboard for talking about how historians evaluate evidence and draw conclusions, as well as teaching students how to evaluate whether a source is credible.

I'm definitely not a fan of exclusively using the textbook to teach, well, anything, so if I were teaching US History I could definitely see using this book as one resource for a unit on the 1960s, the Cold War, or the US presidency. I think that it would stimulate not just intellectual curiosity but also the emotions of teenagers, and getting emotions involved is one way to help students retain information. If they can remember how they felt when they read something, the content will stick with them longer. Unless what they felt was bored, which is why I think that using this type of text is a great way for history teachers to increase the engagement level of their students with their content.

Old Records Never Die, by Eric Spitznagel

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to start this review with the admission that the author is a friend of mine. And, I'm sort of in the book. Which means I probably shouldn't even be reviewing it at all. And if I worked at an actual magazine writing official journalisty book reviews they would never in a million years let me be the one to review this book. But I don't. This is MY blog, and I DO WHAT I WANT.

Of course, I read the book in April when it was published, and I have gone back and forth with myself ever since about whether I can actually give it a fair review, or at least, if anyone else will believe I can give it a fair review. Plus, it feels a bit like an exercise in self-aggrandizement. "Look at me world, I know someone who wrote a book that was named one of Amazon's "must read" books. I am literary fame adjacent!" But here's the thing-I didn't just love this book because my friend wrote it. I love it because it is funny and tender and nostalgic and insightful (and funny, did I mention it's funny?).

Old Records Never Die is the true tale of a hero's quest. Spitznagel, our middle-aged protagonist, is driving down Lakeshore Drive one day, thinking about an interview he recently did with Questlove. Questlove is famous for being a prodigious vinyl record collector. He still has the very first 45 he ever bought. Suddenly, the growly rasp of a young Jon Bon Jovi comes on the satellite radio station, and Eric is struck by a bolt of lightning in the form of a sudden compulsion. He wants his records back. The records he collected in the 80s and 90s that he sold to pay rent. Not just records with the same titles as back in the 80s and 90s, but the ACTUAL records he owned. Records he had listened to over and over in his childhood home, his teenage bedroom, his college dorm, his first apartment. Records that he listened to with his dad, fought over with his brother, bought as bait for a certain girl in high school, or smoked weed to. Thus begins the epic journey, fraught with danger(ous, moldy piles of old records), which would lead Eric through the land of record conventions and other middle-aged dudes' basements, where he would meet fellow vinyl obsessives, and a few strange and perhaps slightly unhinged characters.

Of course, along the way he also rediscovers some of the younger self he left behind when he sold those records in the first place. I suppose it's natural when one gets to a certain point in one's life to reflect on the person you were in your teens and early 20s. Sometimes I think about my younger self and have trouble imagining that person eventually became me. There are things that happened that I wish I had paid more attention to at the time, and things that I spent way more emotional time and energy on than I should have. At the same time, I realize that impossible as it may seem from my lofty middle-aged perch, the me of today is the sum total of all of the things that younger self said and thought and did. This is something that Spitznagel explores throughout the book.

But this is not just a sappy trip down Memory Lane. There is little in the way of rank sentimentality in Old Records Never Die. Because Eric doesn't just stop at reliving his glory days (which he admits, with self-deprecating humor, weren't necessarily all that glorious). He isn't the musical equivalent of that old jock who never left home regaling everyone with stories of the time he threw the winning touchdown in the big game against Nowheresville. Spitznagel also examines how objects we owned at certain times in our lives become totems, tangible reminders of who were were when we got them. I am not a vinyl collector myself (though I do own a copy of Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, given to me by my brother a few Christmases ago), but what Eric feels for records, I feel for books. I still have my original copies of the Little House books, and the Narnia books, and the copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that I read at least once a year for a decade or more. When I look at them, I see my 10 year old self reading in my bedroom surrounded by unicorn posters, or my 15 year old self trying desperately to get lost in the world of turn-of-the-century Brooklyn in a effort to forget that I was home alone on a Friday night. The Handmaid's Tale makes me remember myself as the college student who's world was turned upside down when she discovered feminism. Those books each hold a piece of who I would become, and I love them as unreasonably as Eric might love a warped old Replacements album.

There's also great stuff in Old Records Never Die about parenting and marriage and family and grief. Things that folks who aren't music collectors (or book collectors, or collectors of Doctor Who memorabilia, or whatever) can totally relate to, even if they don't really get why a 40-something man would spend a year of his life and a not inconsiderable amount of money tracking down pieces of black plastic. I especially recommend the last chapter, if you are looking for the feels. Because when you get right down to it, this book about music isn't just a book about music.

Ghettoside

Black on black crime.

If that phrase made you cringe, you know how I felt when I started reading Ghettoside, by Jill Leovy. As someone who strives to be anti-racist, and who has been very dialed in to the Black Lives Matter movement, I was immediately put off by the use of this phrase in the forward. Saying that the black community has no place demanding redress for police brutality until they "stop killing each other" is the worst kind of victim blaming. "We (white supremacist power structures and the white folks who perpetuate them) have ghettoized your communities and cut you off from economic and social advancement. We are shocked-SHOCKED-that this might lead to communities in crisis". I almost stopped reading the book without ever getting to the first chapter.

But I am glad I persevered (thanks, Mom-the fact that you read it and sent it to me was the only thing

to get me through). Leovy is not blaming the victims for the systemic racism in law enforcement. She is laying the blame for the high rate of black (and brown) people killing other black (and brown) people squarely on the shoulders of the racist policies of decades of policing in urban centers. Leovy's premise is that through overpolicing minor, non-violent crimes, and underpolicing/under prosecuting assaults and murders, law enforcement policy has encouraged the creation of informal systems of "justice". This "justice" system is predicated on neighborhood affiliation, with respect as currency. In this shadow system, revenge takes the place of criminal prosecution of perpetrators. Leovy explores this idea through the lens of a true story-the murder of the teen-age son of a police officer from South Central LA, otherwise know as Ghettoside by the officers who work there.

Most of the book follows a few dedicated homicide detectives working in the poor black communities in South Central LA.  One of the things that I liked about the book was the even-handed way in which the author portrays both the police detectives and the residents of the community. There is no hero and villain dichotomy, at least not at an individual level. The homicide detectives profiled are all guys who want to do their best to close cases, and the community members the author writes about are shown as multi-faceted people, rather than caricatures of "thugs" and "ghetto rats". Leovy saves her real venom for the systems and policies that have hampered the efforts of the well-meaning detectives to solve cases, and for the deep lack of understanding of the social dynamics of the communities they serve exhibited by the higher-ups who determine policy and staffing levels.

My one criticism is that the story is told primarily through the experiences of the detectives themselves, and Leovy's descriptions of their work ethic and dedication occasionally veered towards the "white savior" archetype (think the teacher from the movie Dangerous Minds), but that did not take away from the impact of her argument. Step by step, she took us through the murder case that frames the book, and through the historical and contemporary circumstances that have led us, as a nation, to where we are today in terms of urban law enforcement. As much as I hate the phrase "state monopoly on violence", that is exactly what is at play in our safer, whiter neighborhoods. As a white resident of a middle class community, I have every expectation that if I were assaulted, or God forbid murdered, that the police and the justice system would do everything in their power to prosecute the perpetrators. People living in poor black and brown neighborhoods have no such expectation. This book is thought-provoking, and provides another piece to the complex puzzle that is racism in America.

Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand

There are no shortage of World War II stories in the world.  The Greatest Generation, fighting perhaps the last truly righteous war, came home from Europe and the Pacific and became our fathers,
grandfathers, uncles, and grumpy old neighbors.  American pop culture has seen plenty of images of D-Day, the liberation of the concentration camps, and the naval battles of the Pacific.  And we've begun, in small ways, to deal with our own shameful WWII history, when tens of thousands of American citizens, who happened to be Japanese, were rounded up and sent to internment camps.

But the story of Louis Zamperini, and the other men held as POWs in Japanese prisoner of war camps, is something new added to the long narrative of World War II and its aftermath.  If Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, was a fictional tale, I would probably say it is unrealistic.  I mean, who would expect anyone to believe a story where survivors of a plane crash in the ocean survive for over 40 days drifting in a tiny raft in the Pacific, stalked by sharks, strafed by enemy aircraft, only to be "rescued" by the Japanese army and sent to prison camps, where the brutality shown them apparently knew no bounds?  Any one of them is a former Olympic athlete?  Yeah, right!

But this story is a true story, under the category of "you can't make this stuff up".  Hillenbrand's book tell the chilling story of Louis Zamperini and his fellow pilots, flying bombing runs in the Pacific theater in planes that were themselves almost as dangerous to the lives of the crew as the enemy.  To be honest, just the experiences of the men learning to fly these early war planes would have made a fascinating book.  I was routinely horrified by the way the US military used these patriotic, enthusiastic young men (boys, really) as fodder for the war machine that sprang to life when Japan bombed Hawaii.  But, of course, the real meat of the story is not about US military policy, but about the incredible struggle for survival that Louis and the other men who were stranded on that life raft endured in order to get back home.

What struck me most while reading this books was the lengths that the human mind will go to to preserve some shred of dignity in life.  Despite the filth, the disease, the hunger, and the impossibly inhuman treatment suffered by the prisoners, each in their own way tried to find some small act of resistance or independence that made them feel as though they were still human, still valuable, still worthy of life and respect.  Not every man was able to find a way to survive with sanity intact, but I  think it is a great testament to the human spirit that even when being treated like animals, Louis and many of the men in the camps with him persevered.  Of course, none of them left the experience without scars, both physical and mental.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that there is a movie of this book being released at Christmas.  (I will admit to finding the timing unusual, since it is not exactly the most heartwarming, uplifting story.)  I certainly plan to see it, but I am curious about one thing.  The last quarter of the book examines the effects that Louis' experiences had on his psyche, his physical health, and his relationships.  Will the movie?  Are we so averse as a country to thinking/talking/considering the terrible consequences of making men into soldiers that the movie will end with a triumphant rescue, or will the film explore the deep, lingering pain that these men brought home?  I certainly hope so.  I hope that Hillenbrand would not have released the rights to the book without the part that, to me, speaks the most to what we can do as a society to make sure that no one, not one more American soldier or airman or seaman or marine, has to experience the brutalities of war the way the men in this book did.

The Midwife, Jennifer Worth

Ah, the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth.  That beautiful time when glowing women contentedly rub their ever-swelling bellies, whiling away the hours crafting beautiful hand-made works of art for their well-appointed nurseries.  When the time comes for the special bundle to make its way into the world, they execute their meticulously planned labor plans, breathing away the pain without the use of drugs, pushing for all of two minutes before the baby appears, perfectly formed, into the hands of the doctor (or midwife or dula, if they are really going natural).

What?  This doesn't sound like your birthing experience?  Yeah, mine either, but as a culture we have mythologized pregnancy and childbirth to the point that women feel guilty if they haven't had the perfect Pinterest birthing experience (which, if you think about it, is good practice for once the child is actually born, and then they can feel guilty about the non-Pinterst perfect birthday parties and Elf on the Shelf ideas).  The reality?  Pregnancy and childbirth are wonderful, for most women.  But even women with a completely normal pregnancy have to deal with swollen ankles, strange bodily fluids, sore and swollen breasts, constipation, back aches, and morning sickness.  Child birth itself is miraculous, yes, but also messy, and, let's face it, pretty gross.  

If you'd prefer to hold on to the description at the beginning of this post as your mental image of pregnancy and childbirth, then I suggest that you do NOT read The Midwife by Jennier Worth (also called Call the Midwife, depending on which edition you have).  This memoir, upon which is based a PBS historical drama, is the first in a trilogy of books that examine the experiences of a group of midwives in post-war London.  And it is not for the faint of heart.  

London after World War II was battered.  Many buildings had been destroyed by the Germans during the Blitz, and rebuilding plans were stalled due to budget cuts and changes in government leadership. This left many poor families crammed together in tenements that had been slated for destruction, until id became clear that there was no where near enough housing left for everyone in London. Jennifer Worth left her comfortable middle class home to join a corp of midwives working in London's East End, treating women who lived in unsanitary conditions most of us can only imagine, many of whom already had many children.  That close to the docks, the men tended to be hard, and the women tended to be overwhelmed.  This first book tells about Jennifer's early days as a midwife, and is full of fascinating and graphic descriptions of cases she worked on.

If you are not comfortable reading graphic, rather vivid descriptions of other women's lady parts, and the smells and fluids that might come out of them, then you probably want to avoid this book.  Ditto if you can't handle stories about dead and dying babies, or mothers, or both.  The reality for most poor pregnant women in post-war London was that they dealt with their pregnancy living in a two room apartment with their husband and two or five or eight other children, an apartment that had no running water, no bathroom, and was either sweltering or freezing depending on the season.  

If you can handle the content, then you will find a book that is written with what strikes me as typical middle-class English reserve.  The stories are straightforward, with Worth sharing just enough of her own reactions to the situations to keep it from sounding too clinical.  It's an interesting look at the beginning of the National Health Service, founded to provide universal, no-cost health care to the people of the United Kingdom.  It is also an examination of how doctors, who were predominately male, either valued or dismissed the experience and knowledge of the midwives, causing a few tense and adversarial moments for the midwives themselves.  And despite the circumstances of many of their patients, I think that there are things that American health care could learn from the way they provided services to their patients.  The mythologized version of pregnancy might be prettier, but the reality is so much more interesting!

The Reason I Jump, Naoki Higashida

For the first 20 years of my teaching career, I taught self-contained special education.  I chose special education as a career for two reasons.  The first was the book A Circle of Children, by Mary McCracken.  It is a memoir of McCracken's time teaching in a school for children with severe social/emotional disabilities. The second reason was my experiences volunteering at a day camp for children with special needs in the south suburbs of Chicago as a teen.  Not only was I fascinated by the puzzle that these children presented to educators, I was deeply moved watching them grow from year to year, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of that process.

During those years, I met and worked with many, many children.  Quite a few were diagnosed with autism, both the more stereotypical "hand-flapping, spinning-objects" kind, and the varied forms that we have come to recognize today as part of a spectrum of symptoms.  Some of the children were non-verbal, some of them talked non-stop, though usually only about whatever obsession they were currently stuck in.  I learned all about the difference between asphalt and concrete from Keeler, and more about Uh Gi Oh than I would ever need to know from Nick.  Kameron mostly just repeated what other people said to him (called echolalia), but when he did verbalize his own thoughts they almost always had to do with basketball.  I knew children with autism who didn't like to be touched at all, and some who wanted nothing more than deep pressure all the time.  I knew children with autism who never demonstrated self-stimulation, and some who would bounce on their toes or flap their hands non-stop without intervention.  And no matter which child I was currently working with, I always, always wondered what they were thinking about.  Were they content to be left alone?  What made them suddenly take off running?  Why did they insist on wearing the same clothes, day in and day out, regardless of the weather?  Why could they echo whatever was said to them, but not tell us their own thoughts and dreams.

We know so much more about autism than we ever have before.  We know that the issues people with autism have with touch and sound and light has to do with differences in their sensory integration.  We know that people with autism can exhibit different behaviors based on where they fall on the spectrum, and that some disorders that we called something else previously are in fact related to autism spectrum disorder.  But there are also still lots of mysteries.  No one knows the cause of autism (but we know it is NOT childhood vaccines, in case you've heard that in the media).  No one is entirely sure why the repetitive and obsessive behaviors exhibited by many people with autism are so comforting to them, nor do we know why not every person with autism has these behaviors.  But we may now have a better idea about what people with autism may be thinking about, thanks for a remarkable 13 year old Japanese boy.  Naoki Higashida shares his thoughts and experiences as a person with autism, and takes some guesses about how things may be with others who have autism, in his bookThe Reasons I Jump.  He gives us insight into the internal life of people with autism in a way that I have never seen before.

 There are many noteworthy things about this book.  It has an interesting format, in that Higashida starts each section with a question that neurotypical may ask about autism (and probably have asked), and then proceeds to answer the questions according to his own experience.  The book is also interspersed with short stories that demonstrate some aspect  of Higishida's inner life.  But the thing that makes this book truly amazing is the fact that Higishida is non-verbal. He can speak, but the process is so difficult for him that he uses a communication grid he devised himself, or a computer, to write what he wants to say.  Without those adaptions, he would most certainly be trapped inside his own head, unable to communicate at all.  No one would ever have had access to his insight into living with autism, and that would be a tragedy.


Essentially, his message is one that I think probably resonates with anyone who has a physical or mental illness.  Have compassion, have patience, and have understanding, because people with autism or other disabilities don't have control over that disability.  He acknowledges over and over that he knows it can be taxing and frustrating to take care of people with autism.  He knows that having to say the same things over and over again, only to have the person with autism forget what they were told is difficult.  He knows that it worries his parents when he suddenly runs away from them, or when he doesn't notice the world around him and its many possible dangers.  But he tries, and he wants to be recognized as a person with needs, a person who does not always live up to his own expectations for himself, but who is honestly, truly trying to understand how to live in a neurotypical world.    He also reveals a deep sense of self-awareness and insight that I think many people working with people on the autism spectrum would find unbelievable.  Some people living with autism are so distant emotionally and cognitively from the world us neurotypicals live in that it is hard to believe that are thinking about much of anything at all.  How many times have I heard the words, "He's in his own world" used to describe someone with autism?  I've thought it myself often enough over the years.  And for some people with autism it may be true that their experience of the world are so different than mine that it really is like another world, but I suspect more often people with autism are looking for the same things all of us are-safety, comfort, and meaningful human connection.

The Least Depressing Book about Death I've Ever Read

Occasionally my book club forces me to go outside of my regular reading comfort zone and try something that I would never have picked up on my own.  I remember thinking that I wasn't really interested in reading The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe.  It's non-fiction, for a start, though it is memoir, which I find much more enjoyable than other forms of that genre.  But I will admit to having some prejudices.  I imagined a book full of discussions about "how to deal with death/dying" books, and I was prepared for something akin to The Five People You Meet in Heaven (not that there's anything wrong with that-just not my cup of tea).

What I got instead was a smart, thoughtful, thought-provoking look at the end of a remarkable life.  Will Schwalbe's mother, Mary, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2007.  She was a strong, confident, socially conscious woman who had worked for years supporting refugees in war-torn parts of the world.  She had traveled to some of the most dangerous places in earth, and when she came back from a trip to Afghanistan feeling ill, at first no one thought too much of it.  But what her doctors thought was a form of hepatitis was soon revealed to be tumors in her pancreas, which had already spread to her liver.  And while treatment could extend her life, the illness was terminal.  This left Mary with the task of living while dying, and her family the task of figuring out how to relate to their spouse and mother knowing her time was limited.

Will would often accompany his mother to her chemo treatments, and it was in the waiting and treatment rooms at Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York that they started what was to become a two-person, mother-son book club.  Both Mary and Will had always been avid readers, and the books they chose to read were either old favorites or new stories they discovered with and for each other.  The chapter titles are the titles of the books they read together, and each book frames a different part of their experience.  Some of the books had new meaning reading them while in the process of dying.  Some of them reminded Mary or Will about the things that were important in life, and all of them were high-quality literature.  My fears of a book full of trite, sentimental soundbites and self-help advice were unfounded.  In fact, as I read I found myself drawn more into the books they were reading than the story of their relationship.  I got a new reading list out of it, in fact.

That's not to say that the story was moving and emotional on a personal level.  Will and his mother had the enormous privilege of having the means and opportunity to spend this time together.  At several points in the book, Will or Mary points out how lucky they are to be in a position for her to get the best possible care, or for Will to quit his job and take on a new venture without worrying about losing his house or feeding himself. But ultimately, all of the money and education and connections in the world could not stop the inevitable progression of her disease.  Rather than railing against his mother's fate, Will is grateful for the time they were able to have, memories that will now forever be associated with the many wonderful books they read and loved together.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Growing Up JW

As a school teacher, I am intimately familiar with one aspect of Jehovah's Witness theology-the prohibition against celebrating holidays.  Every year there was at least one child in my class who would have to sit out during our Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's parties.  Occasionally they would also have to leave the room while birthday treats were passed out, and of course, alternate assignments had to be given for any holiday themed project.  Other than their apparent aversion to party food and paper hearts, I knew very little about their actual beliefs.  To be honest, I wasn't even sure if Jehovah's Witness fell under the umbrella of Christianity.  I gleaned a bit more over the years, and as a Unitarian Universalist I felt strongly that I should respect the right of everyone to follow whatever religious path they wanted, as long as it wasn't hurtful to anyone else.

Well, I can't speak to how most Jehovah's Witnesses practice their faith, and whether they find it oppressive or painful, but I know of at least one who did.  In I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, Kyria Abrahams shares stories from her childhood in a religious JW family (an abbreviation that I use because she did).  They are alternately hilarious and horrifying-like the meetings her mother would have with her teachers at the beginning of the year to discuss the many benefits having a Witness in class will bring, or the fact that according to the elders the Smurfs were actually little blue demons that could steal your soul for Satan.

The book opens when Kyria is in elementary school, and she tells the quirky, sometimes crazy stories about her family and their Kingdom Hall with self-deprecating wit and an ability to laugh at herself.  As she gets older in the memoir, however, her stories take on a dark tone that made me realize just how difficult it was for her to live up to the pressure of living up to the almost impossible standards of the only "true" Christians.  As her life spirals out of control, the true dangers of any fundamentalist upbringing becomes clear-Kyria has no idea how to deal with anything that contradicts her very rigid belief system , and no idea how to function in the real world.  By the end of the book, I'd gone from laughing out loud to gasping in horror.  And I can honestly say that the more I learned about Jehovah's Witness the more I became convinced that no matter how much my Unitarian Universalist heart wants to respect other people's faith traditions,  the inherent problems with the judgmental, rigid theology of the Jehovah's Witness seems more problematic than redemptive.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened, AKA Stream of Consciousness I Actually Liked

Ok, I suppose that technically this book is not actually written in purposeful, literary stream of consciousness, but Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir is so full of the rambling thoughts of the author, Jenny Lawson, that it may as well be.  That sentence actually makes that sound like a bad thing, but in fact Lawson's book is a hilarious look at the inner workings of a very intense, interesting mind, and the outer ramifications of those thoughts entering the world through word or deed.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened details Lawson's rather, shall we say, unconventional upbringing in west Texas, her journey to adulthood, and her relationship with her husband over 15 years of their marriage. There's taxidermy, animal attacks (real and perceived), disastrous dinner parties, awkward conversations, vultures, homemade colon cleanses, and a five foot tall metal rooster.  Luckily there are photos to prove some of the more fantastic stories-since frankly no one would probably believe them otherwise.

If you are a fan of Jen Lancaster's books (Bitter is the New Black, My Fair Lazy, etc...), then you will probably love this book.  Lawson had that same brand of snarky, sarcastic humor, which is only not obnoxious because most of the time she turns it against herself.  Her relationship with her husband, Victor, reminded me so much of Jen Lancaster's husband Fletch that I am almost convinced that there is a secret group of men out there who are tasked with marrying women who will need to be talked down off the metaphorical ledge on a daily basis.  Unlike Lancaster, however, Lawson has the most bizarre life history of any real person I can think of.  And she the most hilarious parts of the book come from the fact that she is basically a social cripple-if her stories are to be believed, she is pretty much incapable of having a normal conversation with someone she's just met, or her husband's co-workers, or pretty much anyone in real life.  There are many examples in the book, and most of them seem to involved using the word vagina...a lot!  IN the end, Lawson concludes that it is not the triumphs in life that define us, but those moments we'd just like to pretend never happened.

True Crime With a Personal Twist

As much as I love mysteries, I've never been a huge fan of true crime books.  I think it has something to do with not wanting to contribute to voyeuristic, tabloid culture.  After all, you can hardly turn on the television without seeing a 20/20, 48 Hours, etc...special dissecting in minute, excruciating detail every thrilling part of the crime.  But sometimes a book comes along that intrigues me enough to pick it up.  A Death in Belmont is one of those books.

A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger tells the story of The Boston Strangler, but using the context of a black man named Roy Smith, who was convicted of a murder in the suburb of Bemont, MA.  The murder fit the profile of the Strangler murders, but there was enough circumstantial evidence to convince police that TBGDI-"the black guy did it".  Later, when Albert DeSalvo confessed to the killings, he never confessed to the killing that Smith was convicted of.  What made gave it a personal twist was the fact that during the time of the killings, DeSalvo was working on a construction project for Junger's family, and may in fact have left the Junger home to commit the Belmont murder.  All pf the principle players died before the complete story was revealed, and experts differ on whether the Belmont murder was a miscarriage of justice against a black man by a racist justice system, or whether Smith did in fact commit the crime.

A Death in Belmont is well researched, and Junger doles out the facts and his own speculation in a well-paced account.  He goes back and forth recounting the movements of Smith, DeSalvo, the detectives, and his own family from chapter to chapter.  In the end he makes a pretty good case for his theory of the crime.  And, of course, what makes the whole things that much creepier is the idea that while he was an infant, his mother spent her days caring for him in the company of one of the most prolific serial killers of the 20th century.  Junger's writing is compelling, and even though he goes into pretty exhaustive detail I never felt bogged down by facts or overwhelmed by the amount of information.  If true crime is your thing, this book will probably suit you quite well.

Haven't I Heard This Somewhere Before?

In Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs gave us a hilarious and horrifying look into his early life.  When his parents divorced, Augusten's mother signed over guardianship of him to her psychotic psychiatrist.   Refusing to go to school, he spent his days drinking or getting high with this foster sister, and being preyed upon by a 33 year old pedophile.  It was a story like no other-hopefully because no one else has ever lived through that particular brand of hell.

Dry picks up the story of his life as an award winning copywriter at an ad agency and raging alcoholic. After a particularly disastrous business meeting, his company gives him an ultimatum-go to rehab or lose his job.  He enters rehab determined to treat it as a spa vacation, only to be confronted pretty quickly with the strange world of group therapy and the 12 steps.  He leaves rehab determined to stay sober, but the pressures of real life threaten his fragile sobriety.  And this, this is a story I've heard before.


Granted, Dry is told with Burrough's usual wit.  I admire his ability to laugh at himself, and unlike some recovery memoirs this one is not preachy or sentimental.  But it also doesn't really have anything new to say on the subject of addiction.  He was a drunk, for understandable reasons, but still a drunk.  He nearly ruined his own (and a few other people's) life.  He met some unusual characters in rehab, had difficulty re-entering the "real" (read: sober) world, etc...etc...If you are a fan of Augusten Burroughs, it is probably worth reading just so you can say you've read the "complete set", so to speak, but if you've never read his books before, start with Running with Scissors-much more compelling story.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

I was born in 1970.  So while my life overlaps briefly with the Viet Nam War, I have no real memory of it.  What I do remember is going to downtown Chicago with my granny, and later with my parents, and seeing the faces of the homeless vets that were begging on the streets.  Wild-eyed, or blank-stared, the memories of their faces color everything that I have heard, read, or seen about the war since.  And I have heard, read, and seen a lot.  Stories from the fathers of friends who fought in the war, lessons from school, movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon-from these sources I have cobbled together a picture of that hot, wet, chaotic, horrific place and time.

But I am not sure that I have truly felt that I had even the faintest understanding of what it might actually have been like.  Not, that is, until I read Tim O'Brien's stunning book The Things They Carried.  Neither entirely fact nor entirely fiction, O'Brien uses a series of short stories and vignettes to tell the tale of Alpha Company, a group of soldiers based, in part, on the real men that O'Brien served with during the war.  The stories meander from stateside to the jungles of Viet Nam, from childhood to middle age, detailing how each experience prepares or informs or explains the person that Tim was or is or may yet become.

I will admit to having some difficulty at first with the non-linear narrative, and with the fact that I was never sure what was true and what was made-up.  But the genius of this work is that you soon realize that it doesn't matter.  In fact, the way that the book is put together and the inability to tell fact from fiction ends up doing a better job describing what living through that experience was like than any straight forward telling could.  O'Brien and his fellow soldiers lived a reality that most of us will never experience, and can never truly comprehend, where time was skewed, day and night traded places, where extraordinary circumstances became ordinary, and where the ordinary world as most of us know it became a dream that you couldn't let yourself believe in.

My favorite section of the book (if favorite is even the right word) is the story of how O'Brien almost ran away to Canada rather than go to war.  Part of O'Brien's extreme talent is an ability to use words to paint not just a visual but an emotional picture for the reader, and I was able to feel how deeply terrified he was at the prospect of war.  I felt his ambivalence about running away, about choosing the possibility of death over the certainty of shame and embarrassment.  But the thing I found most stunning, and the line I would consider the most "controversial" of the whole piece, is this, "I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Viet Nam, where I was a soldier, and then home again.  I survived, but it's not a happy ending.  I was a coward. I went to war."
Given the hyper-patriotism of the US since 9-11, and our unquestioning assumption that every soldier is brave and heroic,  this simple statement stopped me dead in my tracks.  It felt almost sacrilegious.  Are we allowed to say that not going to war is more courageous than going?  What does that say about us as a society, that we are find ourselves so often in armed conflicts?  Is it bravery and strength, or is it because we don't want to be judged as wanting by the rest of the world?  What would happen if our young men and women, en masse, simply refused to go the next time we try to send them into harm's way?  Would it be courageous or cowardly?  Regardless of where any one of us comes down on that particular idea, what O'Brien's work has done is illustrate for those of us that weren't there that nothing is as simple and straightforward in war as those of us sitting at home watching it on our televisions thinks it is.

Top Ten Tuesday: Must Haves, Just Not Must Reads

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the blogging team at The Broke and the Bookish, is asking me and my fellow bloggers to bust ourselves out about those books we just had to have, but that have been sittig on our shelves gathering dust ever since.  Well, I can't possibly make a list, because that compulsion has never happened to me!  I am frugal and circumspect in my book buying choices.  I don't ever walk into a bookstore and come out with a few extra impulse buys, like they are so many candy bars at the check out stand!  I never...

OK, who am I kidding?  Of course I have succumbed to the temptation to pick up a book in a whim which then serves as a shelf decoration for some period of time.  Sometimes I even pick up a book that I just can't wait to read, I need it NOW-except apparently I can wait to read it, because there it still sits, on my shelf.  Anyone who loves books-not just stories, but the actual physical thing-has probably got at least a couple of these squirreled away.  Please note that I WILL in fact read this books at some point, but with 350-400 books in my house I have yet to read I'm just not sure when I will read them!  Here's my list of the 10 most wanted (but not read):

1.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Graham Smith:  I love the irreverence of this idea-to take a beloved work of classic fiction and create a mash-up with something so absurd as a zombie story.  Can't tell you if I actually love the execution of it, because I still haven't read it.

2.  Life Mask, Emma Donoghue:  This is one of several titles that was on the long list for the Orange Prize for Fiction last year.  I vowed to read as many of them as I could by the time the prize was announced in June.  I bought about six of them-I read two.  This wasn't one of them.

3.  The Road, Cormac McCarthy:  What's puzzling about this one is that I bought the book specifically so that I could read it before watching the movie.  I'm still waiting to watch the movie because I haven't read the book.  Seems stupid, no?

4.  Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie:  This book has been sitting on my shelf for at least two years.  I've been telling myself ever since that whole fatwa business that I wanted to read it.  It took 15 hears for me to even buy it.  I kept putting it off last year because it is lengthy and I was trying to reach 100 books.  What's my excuse now?  Yeah, don't really have one...

5.  You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, Heather Sellers:  First I read about this book on a blog, then I heard and interview with the author on NPR.  It's a fascinating topic-face blindness.  Imagine going through life not being able to recognize faces!  Well, I'll have to keep imagining, because it's still warming the shelf.

6.  Love, Toni Morrison:  I don't just love Toni Morrison-I worship at the alter of her fabulosity.  So why I've had this book on my shelf for literally years and have yet to read the slim volume is a mystery to me.

7.  A Mercy, Toni Morrison:  See above

8.  Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, Susanna Clarke:   This kind of fantasy story set as historical fiction sounded like and intriguing mix to me, so I bought it.  Then it came, and it's HUGE.  Not that I'm intimidated, mind you, but I am inpatient...I'll get to it, maybe this summer, when I can spend more time reading for me and less time reading for class.

9.  The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Seierstad:  Unlike much of America, I knew well before 9-11 what was happening to women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.  That's what originally drew me to this book.  Apparently it didn't draw me enough to actually read it, just enough to purchase it and let it have a place of honor on my to-be-read shelf for years.

10.  Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol:  Kozol's book Savage Inequalities complete changed the way I think about equity in public education, so when I saw his book about the effects of living in poverty on America's children I had to have it.  Have it, mind, not read it...

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Imagine the most embarrassing thing your parents ever made you wear or do.  Now multiply that by 10 and you may have some idea of Rhoda Janzen's childhood.  In her memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Janzen tells the story of growing up in the Mennonite community in California, and going back to that community at 40 in the wake of a divorce and major health crisis.

Janzen's father was a leader in the Mennonite community, traveling the world and converting non-believers.  Her mother was the backbone of their family.  She was the one that made their lard sandwiches for their school lunches (yes, I said lard), and sewed mismatched strips of fabric at the bottom of their pants when they got too short (you begin to see where the embarrassment comes in).  Rhoda and her sister are very close, and both of them left the community for college.  Their three brothers married nice Mennonite girls and settled down to raise nice Mennonite children. 

Janzen describes her family and her life as an adult with humor, which is good, considering how challenging some of it was.  She was married for 16 years to a man with bi-polar disorder, and like many people in her situation she rationalized away much of his behavior, telling herself that he really loved her underneath all of the cruelty and obsessive behavior.  What she couldn't rationalize away was Bob, the man that her husband met on Gay.com.  Despite having become a non-believer herself, when she goes home to heal after her divorce and a major car accident, she finds herself comforted by how little has changed.

Janzen is an English professor, and you can tell.  Her vocabulary is impressive, though it can be disconcerting to read a story about some rather mundane aspect of life and have to look up a word to understand her point.  Despite my rather frequent trips to websters.com, it was an easy, enjoyable read.

Nice to Meet You, Literary Blog Hop- Charmed, I'm sure!

Welcome, lovers of literature, to my first adventure in Literary Blog Hopping.  I've been remiss in my blogging of late-I blame those pesky little things called working and going to school.  Darn that need to make money anyway!  But I digress...The Literary Book Blog is hosted by the The Blue Bookcase, and is defined as...

How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure. YA literature may fit into this category, but if your blog focuses primarily on non-literary YA, fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, or chick lit, you may prefer to join the blog hop at Crazy-for-books that is open to book blogs of all genres. 

If you're interested in my cogitations about whether I am "literary" enough for this hop, you can find them in my post Does It Matter What We Read?
 

This week's question is:
Is there such a thing as literary non-fiction? If so, how do you define it? Examples?

While I admittedly don't read a ton of non-fiction, I can say with certainty that the answer is yes, there can be literary non-fiction.  If you consider the many definitions of literature, they often contain a reference to the aesthetic or structural nature of the work.  Non-fiction writing can be transcendently beautiful, incredibly heartbreaking, lyrical and gritty-the best non-fiction doesn't just inform you about the chosen topic, but about life and love and pain and joy and sorrow.

There are a few examples I can think of for the subcategory of literary non-fiction.  Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, considered by many to be the first in the true crime genre, comes to mind.  The writing is spare, the mood evocative-sounds literary to me.  There's also Maya Angelou and Alice Walker, both of whom wrote about their lives in a way that transcends mere navel gazing and speaks volumes to larger truths. 

An author not as well known but whose books I believe fit in this category is Rick Bragg.  His memoir of his mother, All Over But the Shoutin', is one of the best non-fiction books I've read (which is a much smaller number than my fiction total).  It is a loving, almost reverent look at his childhood with his mother at the center.  Growing up poor in rural Alabama, Bragg took his experiences and used them as a journalist to bring humanity to stories on issues such as urban poverty.  This line from the book, describing the small town where he grew up, is an excellent example of why he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996: 

"This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven. This is a place where the song 'Jesus Loves Me' has rocked generations to sleep, and heaven is not a concept, but a destination."

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 Thanks to Sheila at One Person's Journey Through Books for hosting this weekly meme, letting book bloggers share what they've been reading.  I tell you, my reading has become so much more diverse since doing this whole book blogging thing!  Thanks to my fellow book bloggers for the inspiration and book ideas! (And no, you're not seeing double-if you read this post at Second Childhood Reviews, that's because it's same blogger, different blog, and I'm cheating this week!)

Another week gone, another week closer to going back to school.  Ah, well, at least I had a good reading week!



Children's/YA Books Completed This Week:

Escape from Saigon, by Andrea Warren

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

(Review coming soon on Second Childhood Reviews!)

Adult Fiction Completed This Week:

Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman

Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler

(Review coming soon)

Books I'm Hoping to Get to This Week:

Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli (YA)
10 Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdel-Fattah (YA)
Mind of my Mind, by Octavia E. Butler

...and whatever else I decide to pick up off the shelf.  After a month of reading for class, I want to keep my options open!

Have a great week, everyone!

Weekly Geeks-The Wishlist

I only recently discovered Weekly Geeks, an interactive blogging community with a different blogger challenge each week (hence the name...sorry, I'm mistress of the obvious right now, huh?)

Here's this week's theme (taken directly from their site)

"Is your wishlist as big as your TBR pile? What books are topping your list? Are there any new releases that you are counting down the days for? Share a handful of titles and be sure to share why you want to get your hands on these books! And if another blogger is responsible for that book being on your wishlist, consider sharing a link to their review!"

And here's my list...

The Dark is Rising Sequence-Susan Cooper-I read this series as a child, and loved everything about it.  It's already made my list of favorite young adult books for another meme, and writing that post made me want to read the whole series again.  I'm anxiously waiting on someone, anyone, to post the first book on GoodReads bookswap, but I may have to break down and buy it soon.

The Book Thief-Markus Zusak-Apparently I am the last book lover on the planet to read this book, which sounds so much like something I would love I can only guess that the genre threw me off. I haven't read much young adult fiction in years, but I've started to pick it up again lately.

My Fair Lazy-Jen Lancaster-Jen Lancaster and I should definitely be friends...she is hilarious, fiercely smart, strong, and independent (dare I say, just like me?).  I find myself reading her books and her blog (linked up there) and saying the same damn thing in my head a second before I read that she also said it.  I can even forgive her membership in the republican party (though that was almost a dealbreaker!)  My Fair Lazy is her newest book, and I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies-Seth Grahame Smith
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, same author-Again, I am apparently late to the party on these two books.  The premise sounds fascinating, and I can't wait to see how the stories are woven together.  I know that some bloggers have felt that these books are overrated, but really, I'm more interested in the writing challenge than the overall story, if that makes sense.

Hmmmm...shorter list that I expected.  Here's the thing-I don't usually choose what to read based on a list.  I have about 400 books in the house that I haven't read yet, so I generally just pick whatever strikes my fancy at the moment.  GoodReads bookswap is spoiling me, though.  It doesn't feel so much like "Why are you spending money on another book when you have a room full of unread ones at home?" when all you're doing is paying for postage!

Confessions of the Other Mother

What makes a person a mother?  How do women who do not identify with traditional femininity fit into the role of mother?  What is it like watching your partner have a physical closeness with your child that you will neve have?  These are all questions posed (and sometimes answered) by the collection of essays Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All.

I was drawn to this book (despite my previously stated aversion to most non-fiction) because my partner, Amanda, could have contributed to the book.  While our 16 year old daughter came about the old-fashioned way from my first marriage, Amanda and I have been raising her together since she was about eight.  I wanted to get some insight into the kinds of experiences that other women had had with blended families.

Had I been paying more attention to the actual table of contents during my book buying frenzy at the conference where I bought this book, I would have noticed that there is only one essay in the book about step-mothering. But I'm glad that I didn't pay more attention, because I would have missed out on some fascinating stories.  From poignant to frustrating, political to deeply personal, the authors of these essays have shared an experience that not only helps me understand lesbian mothering, but actually gave me insight into straight fathering.  It never occurred to me that women who identify strongly as butch would have trouble not just being called mother, but with identifying with our society's definition of maternal.  Or that there would be jealousy from the non-birth spouse over the closeness of breastfeeding (this was the one that got me thinking about straight fathers).  Or that people were really so insensitive as to ask which mother is the "real" mother.

The one that spoke the most strongly to me was written by one of the women who brought about the lawsuit that led to the Massachusetts gay marriage decision, Hilary Goodrich.  Her partner had to have a C-section while delivering their daughter.  The baby was born in some distress, so she was rushed to the NICU, and Goodrich went with her.  After sitting next to her daughter's bed until the crisis passed, she went back to check on her partner-and was told that she could not "visit" because she was not "family".  She then tried to go back to the NICU, where she was stopped at the door because she was not the "mother".  Imagine not being able to go to the person you love or your child when they are sick or in pain, and the frustration and anger you'd feel.   

There has been a lot of debate in our country over the years about what makes a family.  I think that most of us have gotten our heads around the idea of single parents, blended families, and families with grandparents as the main child-rearers.  Based on the stories in Confessions, we still have some work to do on honoring and valuing the love and care that exists in families led by same-sex parents.